A RARE BRONZE BIRD-FORM WATER-DROPPER AND ATTACHED COVER

ZHOU DYNASTY

Details

A RARE BRONZE BIRD-FORM WATER-DROPPER AND ATTACHED COVER
Zhou Dynasty
Shown in a crouching position with its long scaly legs folded under a plump body covered overall with feathers defined by semi-circular dotted segments, the underside with two confronted chi dragon heads, its linear wings tucked into the sides and decorated with bird heads, the head, supported on a long neck, with pronounced sharp beak, beady eyes, low crest and small 'horns', above the short spout at the breast, the hinged cover of rectangular shape cast with a small bird of conforming design adjacent to an animal-form loop arching onto the fan-shaped tail, the bronze of an olive tone
4.7/8in. (12.4cm.) high

Lot Essay

There appears to be no other comparable published example.

See Zhongguo Meishu Quanji; Diaosu Bian (The Great Treasury of Chinese Fine Arts; Sculpture), Beijing, 1988, vol. 1, p. 84, no. 113 for a three-legged bronze bird dated to the mid Western Zhou period excavated in Baoji, Shaanxi province, with a similar head, beak, neck and scale-like feathers. Refer, also, to the flattened he dated late Western Zhou, with a bird-shaped lid, excavated in Qijiacun, Fufeng, Shaanxi province and now in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum, op. cit., no. 230. The bird-shaped lid compares very well to the present lot in the form of the beak and the stylized, folded wings.